Sartorially Screwed

Becks complained last week about the poor clothing choices available these days for women, specifically the lack of linings in shirts:

There were two shirts I would have bought had they been lined. That's one of my biggest pet peeves -- I hate that so many things come in that grey area now where it's obviously not meant to be sheer but you can see right through it.  Bah.

One might be tempted to cry "conspiracy!" and curse the names of those in the fashion-industrial complex. And it would be correct to do so. Caroline Weber had a review in the Times Sunday Book Review of Dana Thomas's book, "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster," which details the increasingly corporate and profit-driven nature of the luxury industry over the past couple of decades:

Insofar as luxury has gone corporate, relentlessly focused on the bottom line, quality has disappeared. In order to keep margins high (in 2005, LVMH recorded more than $17 billion in sales and a net profit of almost $1.8 billion), Arnault and his competitors have cut costs wherever and whenever possible. The most obvious strategies involve using cheaper materials, replacing skilled artisans with computers and machines and outsourcing labor to less expensive markets like China. Sneakier tactics include “cutting sleeves a half an inch shorter” (“when you get to 1,000, you see the savings,” one employee told the author), replacing finished seams with raw edges and eliminating linings on the grounds that “women don’t really need” them. [emphasis added]